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From: tws@beach.cis.ufl.edu (Thomas Sarver)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: The future of AI [was Re: Time Magazine -- Computers of the Future]
Summary: Man's Role in the Universe
Message-ID: <15987@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU>
Date: 10 Jun 88 19:09:50 GMT
References: <48.22A3B84F@isishq.UUCP>
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Reply-To: tws@beach.cis.ufl.edu (Thomas Sarver)
Organization: UF CIS Department
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In article <48.22A3B84F@isishq.UUCP> doug@isishq.UUCP (Doug Thompson) writes:
|
|I wonder. I actually wonder if the human psyche (the subject of 
|psychology) can actually be dealt with "scientifically" or 
|mathematically at all. First, science and mathematics presume 
|repeatability and predictability. The ancient idea of human free will 
|appears to be at odds with both. Humans appear to be unpredictable. 
|
| [...]
| 
|Can you give a machine values, passion, emotions, and sympathies?? 
|Maybe, but whose values, whose passions? Yours? Mine? Adolph Hitler's? 
|All are "human". 
| 
| [...]
| 
|How can you apply math or science to such things as Faith, Spiritual 
|sensibility, relgious experience, love or  hatred? 
| 
|I think that science cannot begin to explain the forces which move a 
|person to believe or have faith. We can do some statistics on some of 
|them, but I think we shall never be able to build a computer like Martin 
|Luther, or Jesus Christ, or Moses.  
| 
#Science can do very well with the natural world, but I suspect there is 
#a part of the human being which is strongly connected to a super-natural 
#reality which science has yet to get a grip on. 
| 
| 
|Bitnet:   fido@water                                   Canada  N2L 3X1 
|Internet: doug@isishq.math.waterloo.edu                (519) 746-5022 

Whoa!  I can't help noticing that this is wishful thinking.  Anyone who's
studied History of Philosophy knows that Man's role in the universe is
being diminished as technology advances.  With each advance in technology,
Man has found something that makes him less "special."  A great example
was the Earth was found to rotate the Sun.  Suddenly the Earth is part
of a huge Universe that doesn't completely depend on the Earth, home of Man.

As machines can do more things that Man can do, Man has to try to retain that
sense of "special"ness by saying things like "A machine can never do X" or
"A machine will never have X property."  Ergo, Man is constantly rebelling
against the idea that He can be replaced by a machine.

I personally believe that we won't be able to truly create a machine replicate
of ourselves simply because no entity can artificially create another entity of
equal or greater complexity than itself.

I know, this could be another set of wishful thinking.  But you and I won't be
around to see whether we truly can.  Maybe we can create a man-machine hybrid
that contains the best of both man and machine.  There are also ethical
questions:  what to do about an intelligent machine with free will?

Basically, it starts getting really sticky after we stop talking about
_simulating_ human activity and _replicating_ it.  I have some ethical problems
of my own that remain unresolved in regard to whether it is moral to do
research towards artificial intelligence at all.  Are we building the slave
owners of future generators?

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But hey, its the best country in the world!
Thomas W. Sarver

"The complexity of a system is proportional to the factorial of its atoms.  One
can only hope to minimize the complexity of the micro-system in which one
finds oneself."
	-TWS

Addendum: "... or migrate to a less complex micro-system."